


Come into the cold

by spasticbirdie



Category: Dofus (Video Game), Wakfu
Genre: Angst, Oneshot, first time writing wakfu! wow
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-28
Updated: 2018-02-28
Packaged: 2019-03-25 05:57:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,638
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13827948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spasticbirdie/pseuds/spasticbirdie
Summary: Set right after the big freeze, Harebourg tries to survive the cold of Frigost.





	Come into the cold

**Author's Note:**

> An anonymous request through Discord, this is the first time I've written Wakfu/Dofus! I had a great time, Harebourg's a really interesting character.

The fire came to life with a sharp  _ crack _ , a flame hardly an inch in size, the sound instantly drowned out against the winds howling past outside. The ice and snow ingrained deep in the kindling resisted the flame’s efforts to catch, and after mere seconds it sputtered out, leaving not even a burn on the pages of the book he’d tried to ignite.

Harebourg’s shaking hands faltered, cracked with the cold beneath his rough handwraps. Fire magic was already out of his wheelhouse, and the snow, winds, and freezing cold were far from helping. Summoning even a spark was like spitting in Djaul’s face, and in the part of his mind dulled by the cold he could imagine laughter in the gale surrounding what remained of his palace.

He was past feeling cold. He was past feeling much of anything. In a way, that was a blessing; he must have trekked across Frigost at least twice since the freeze, and if he could actually feel the exhaustion running through his body, he would have fallen over and quit a long time ago.

And beyond robbing feeling from his body... Harebourg suspected, in the far-off, oddly calm way of the deeply insane, that the cold had robbed feeling from his mind as well. If he tried, he could remember breaking from the freeze, feeling wild fear and confusion, looking out over Frigost with despair, cursing the gods with anger. He could remember feeling those emotions, but for some curious reason, not what they actually  _ felt _ like. When he managed to summon up a memory, any memory, he was a detached observer to it, neutral and emotionless. The man striding across Frigost’s plains, wearing his clothes, his face, his mannerisms, was a stranger.

Harebourg looked down at the small, sad pile of fuel and kindling; books, their pages laid open and bare, scraps of wood, a small branch, all lying in a sloppy pile on the floor of his study. He looked past his hands, which were extended, palms-out, wrapped in bandages that had been falling to scraps for a while now.

He lowered his hands, looking uncomprehendingly at the pile. If his mind were capable, he would have felt confusion.

_ What...was I doing? _

* * *

 

As his boot crunched into the snowdrift, the powder coming all the way up to his knee, something made Harebourg turn back to look. The spire of his castle was just barely visible through the snowfall, and his line of footprints in the snow was rapidly disappearing, each indentation quickly filling up.

He turned away, looking to the village ahead. The roofs of the houses stuck out of the snow, and every building shorter than two stories high was entirely buried. In what was once the center of the town, a windmill leaned dangerously to the side. Even as the wind sent clouds of powder dancing through the village, dozens of feet above the buried ground, the windmill didn’t turn; it was frozen fast, the long blades covered in icicles.

Harebourg took another step, dragging his feet and leaving a long gash in the snow, and again, found himself looking back. His castle was still there, but it looked even farther now, much farther than that one step could have carried him. His trail was a pair of parallel cuts in the snow, gashes in the pure white.

He blinked, his eyes closing for what must have been only a moment, surely; just a moment, a blink, no more than a second.

He opened them again. The gashes of his trail were gone. He turned to the village again, and the windmill had collapsed, the top half lying atop the snowbank and disappearing into the white.

He took another step, having already forgotten where he was going and why.

* * *

 

Strangely, the snow had hardly covered this place.

It was a hilltop, not far from the village and his tower. Before the freeze, it was covered in flowers and greenery, a rise in the land with a beautiful view of the surroundings. Now, it gave a view of nothing but white surrounding the hill.

But strangely, there was no snow. Instead, ice covered the hill, like a layer of glass. It was so clear that one could see the flowers coloring the hillside beneath it, preserved perfectly in the ice, flash-frozen like everything else, a rainbow of life stopped dead under the cold.

Harebourg was looking elsewhere, however. He was looking at the strange thing at the peak of the hill.

His hands hung slack at his sides, heedless of the dark spots of frostbite beginning to creep into them. Like before, with the fire, he would be feeling curiosity if he could feel at all as he stared at the small figure standing at the peak of the hill.

_ What is that? _

In the shape of a cross, a round, smiling face was looking up to the sky, frozen in joyous laughter. Arms were thrown wide, like it was greeting the heavens above and the land below, welcoming its arrival. A heavy coat wrapped it, the hood hanging back off its neck, and thick ice wrapped the whole figure. Harebourg stood before it, and it almost looked like it was expecting a hug from him.

He could only stare, impassive and emotionless, wondering without curiosity.

_ What is that? _

A hand mechanically lifted from his side, touching the smooth, cold ice enveloping the figure, unable to feel the sheer surface of the ice or the sharp chill it gave off. It ran along the figure’s face, fingers separated from it by the shell of ice.

The figure smiled up at Harebourg, constantly, eternally, and he felt nothing.

_ What is that? _

* * *

 

He blinks, only for a moment, surely, it can’t be more than a blink, and somehow moves from one end of the bridge to the other. Odd.

Now he stands in the main chamber again (his chambers?). He stares out the window, seeing Frigost, the frozen sea stretching away, all white and frozen and dead.

Then, for some reason he can’t quite understand, everything tilts. The floor comes rushing up to meet him, slamming into his chest with a blow he can't feel. Odd. Normally he would begin getting up after falling, his arms lifting him off the floor and his legs assembling beneath him. But they don't move, no matter how long Harebourg waits for them to begin doing their job. How lazy.

He blinks, and finds that he can’t fully open his eyes. That must be it; what other reason could there be for his vision slowly darkening, slowly shrinking until he can see little more than a single dot of snow, on the ground outside his door.

Then, everything goes black.

And Harebourg feels something.

Cold. Surrounding him. Everywhere, freezing, biting, stinging, burning cold.

His eyes open. He is lying on his back, staring at the ceiling of his chambers, and he is cold. It runs through his whole body, so cold it's like fire, burning him, incinerating his entire body.

He screams. The sound echoes around the room and out the door, and for a moment, the howling winds seem to cease, quieting as he screams in pain until the dark and cold claims him.

* * *

 

After passing out, waking up in pain, and passing out from the pain again, Harebourg awoke to silence.

He slowly sat up, and as his hands pressed to the surface he laid upon he nearly cried out in pain; it was cold, painfully cold to the touch. He scrambled to his feet, and the floor beneath him was smooth and flat.

Perfectly encircling the spot he had fallen was a cocoon of ice, clear and smooth. It curled up around him like an infant’s crib,  blocking the wind and snow, protecting him. At the spot he had been lying in was a slight groove in the exact shape of his body.

He took a shaky, shivering step, the cold still running through him. His entire body was wracked with pain; exhaustion, hunger, the burning of pins and needles as numbness retreated. The ice cocooning him was smooth but not slippery underfoot, more like glass than frozen water.

Harebourg stumbled, lost his balance, and the room began to tilt around him again. But before he could hit it, it came to him, the ice surging up from the floor and steadying him. He grabbed onto the sudden spire of ice almost on instinct, and as he got his balance again, stared in wonder as the ice retreated back into the floor.

He took another step, and came to the walls of the cocoon. As he reached a hand out to touch, the ice parted before him, letting in the cold wind and blasting him back. Crying out as the extreme cold touched him again, grabbing greedily at any exposed skin, stealing his sense of touch again, the ice locked back up and pulled closer.

Lowering his arms, Harebourg watched as the ice drew closer and closer to him, the cold it radiated burning him.

But even as he shivered, he felt the need to reach out to the ice, the cold, to bring it closer to him. It was freezing, below zero, bitingly cold.

But it was warmer than the chill outside.

The ice drew so close to Harebourg that it was like a casket, enveloping him as perfectly as that figure on the hilltop. He held up his arms, and it wrapped around him, a second skin, before sinking  _ into  _ him, became a part of him.

The wind blew into his chambers, and Harebourg stood strong against it. He turned and strode to the window, his kingdom laid out beneath him.

He watched, quietly, before turning purposefully for the door.

_ There is work to be done. _


End file.
